Human Rights and the United Nations

This lesson plan, prepared for a course on World Cultures for 10th grade students by Patricia Arabia of Oakland, California, includes a number of sections -- other than the ones cited here --  which can be adapted. Portions of the plan are included below. To view the entire plan, visit urbandreams.ousd.k12.ca.us/lessonplans/humanrights/lessonplan.html

• The essential question: How can humans resolve global and intra-national conflict short of resorting to violent war and conflict? The goal is to learn basics about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN.

• Activities in Day One in the first segment of the unit

1. Have a writing prompt, Daily Reflection, on the board that serves as a free-writing opportunity…. It is almost always in the form of a question or several questions. There is no right or wrong answer….Throughout the lessons, I ask students to share their responses to these prompts…. For this lesson, I used several questions, e.g. What do you know about Human Rights? What rights did the Declaration of the Rights of Man discuss? Do women have rights today?)
2. I distribute a manila folder to each student that becomes the Human Rights folder for each of the segments of the unit.
3. I review and preview information about the UDHR. I draw in the Essential Question by explaining the birth of the UDHR…. The UN established a Commission on Human Rights which in its preamble asserts: Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. This quote should be posted so the class can refer to to evaluate the strength and success of this premise: can protection of Human Rights prevent war?
4. Distribute a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to each student.
5. As a preview to watching the video by Amnesty International (several artists commissioned to illustrate the 30 Articles of the UDHR), have the students review their copy of the UDHR and pick three Articles they think are important to them and translate the three Articles into their own words….
6. Homework is to review a number of headlines reporting acts which violate or protect human rights around the world and collected by Amnesty International. Students pick three headlines and write three sentences explaining their opinion on whether the human rights issue effects intra-national conflict and two sentences explaining how the student would illustrate the headline to teach other students about the issue.

•Activities in Day Two in the first segment of the unit.

1. The Daily Reflection: Should we enforce the UDHR in countries not our own? If so, how? If not, why?
2. Put students into groups to share their thoughts about the headlines. Students choose as a group one headline to teach. They create a poster to illustrate the headline and list two Articles from the UDHR relevant to the headline…. Relate the rights issue to intra-national conflict in discussing the issue.
3. Put students into groups to share their thoughts about the headlines…. Students choose one headline to teach. They create a poster which illustrates the headline and list two Articles from the UDHR relevant to the headline…. Relate the rights issue to intra-national conflict in discussing the issue.
4. Distribute the outline and instructions for the first Human Rights term paper. The term paper is preparation for the UN session; students research and write about one of the several countries which will bring policy opinions to the UN session. Prepare research packets for the papers…. These should contain a fact sheet, a map, and some information about the country's policy positions on Human Rights issues.
5. The proposed list of countries is India, China, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, South Africa, and EU. The proposed issues for this year are women's rights, specifically in India and/or Iran, reopening the amnesty cases in Argentina/the disappeared in Chile/and post-Apartheid in South Africa, the accusations of child slave rings on the coast of Western Africa, the attempts toward democracy and independence in East Timor and Indonesia, the trials on “crimes against humanity” out of Rwanda and Croatia….
6. Student groups present their posters and headlines…. Have each student take notes and evaluate in two sentences or so each presentations in their journal.
7. List on the board every Human Right discussed or written about or any students can think of from their own knowledge….
8. Have students write a three-paragraph essay discussing whether and how or why not a particular Human Right will affect the occurrence of war or violent conflict. Instruct students to choose Rights from the list of Human Rights collected in the journals and to discuss in the essay at least one relevant Article of the UDHR….
9. You will be collecting drafts of the Human Rights term papers, setting time for peer review, and guiding research.

The unit also consists of two additional segments with similarly detailed activities for the various instructional days. These are found on the web site as are a number of resource books, videos and posters.